Part 8 (1/2)

I agree, as anybody would, with all of this, but it is still difficult to claim that, even with a few more toilets and a supporters' representative on the board of directors at every club, Heysel wouldn't have happened. The point was that banning the sale of alcohol didn't, couldn't possibly, do any harm: it wasn't going to cause any violence, and may even have stopped one or two fights. And, if nothing else, it showed that we were serious about our repentance. The ban could have been taken as a small but felt token towards those in Italy who might have lost loved ones because a few silly boys had had too much to drink.

And what happened? The clubs whined because it affected their relations.h.i.+p with their more affluent fans, and the ban was lifted. On 8th October, seventeen weeks after Heysel, Pete and I and a couple of others decided to buy ourselves a seat in the Lower West Stand for a League Cup game on a miserable night, and to our astonishment were able to buy a round of shorts to keep the cold out: the rule had been changed from ”No alcohol” to ”No alcohol within sight of the pitch”, as if it were the heady combination of gra.s.s and whisky that enraged us all and turned us into lunatics. So where had all the hair-s.h.i.+rt penitence gone? What, practically, were the clubs doing to prove that we were capable of getting a grip on ourselves, and that one day we would be able to play other European teams without wiping out half their supporters? The police were doing things, and the fans were doing things (it was this post-Heysel climate of despair that produced the lifesaving When Sat.u.r.day Comes When Sat.u.r.day Comes and all the club fanzines, and the Football Supporters' a.s.sociation, whose Rogan Taylor was such an accomplished, impa.s.sioned and intelligent spokesman in the weeks after Hillsborough, four years later); but the clubs, I'm afraid to say, did nothing; this one poignant little gesture would have cost them a few bob, so they sc.r.a.pped it. and all the club fanzines, and the Football Supporters' a.s.sociation, whose Rogan Taylor was such an accomplished, impa.s.sioned and intelligent spokesman in the weeks after Hillsborough, four years later); but the clubs, I'm afraid to say, did nothing; this one poignant little gesture would have cost them a few bob, so they sc.r.a.pped it.

THE PITS

ASTON VILLA v a.r.s.eNAL

22.1.86

a.r.s.eNAL v ASTON VILLA

4.2.86

Away at Villa in the quarter-final of the League Cup in January '86 was one of the best nights I can remember: fantastic away support in a magnificent stadium I hadn't visited since I was a kid, a good game and a reasonable result (1-1 after a first-half Charlie Nicholas goal and an early second-half period of domination when Rix and Quinn missed unmissable chances). There was also an interesting historical element to the evening: the freezing January air, near us at least, was thick with marijuana smoke, the first time I had really noticed that there was some sort of different terrace culture emerging.

Over Christmas there had been a mini-revival of sorts: we beat Liverpool at home and Manchester United away on consecutive Sat.u.r.days, just when things were beginning to look really bad. (In the run-up to the Liverpool game we lost 6-1 at Everton, and then went three consecutive Sat.u.r.days without even scoring. On the middle Sat.u.r.day we drew nil-nil at home to Birmingham, who were relegated, in what must surely have been the worst game ever played in the history of First Division football.) We began to allow ourselves to hope a little always a foolish thing to do but from February through to the end of the season everything fell apart.

Home to Villa in the League Cup quarter-final replay was probably my worst-ever night, a new low in a relations.h.i.+p already studded with them. It wasn't just the manner of the defeat (this was the night that Don Howe played Mariner in midfield and left Woodc.o.c.k on the bench); it wasn't just that there was really n.o.body left in the League Cup, and we should at least have gone on to Wembley (if we had beaten Villa then it was Oxford in the semis); it wasn't even that we weren't going to win anything, for the sixth year in succession. It was more than all these things, although they were in themselves bleak enough.

Part of it was my own latent depression, permanently looking for a way out and liking what it saw at Highbury that night; but even more than that, I was as usual looking to a.r.s.enal to show me that things did not stay bad for ever, that it was was possible to change patterns, that losing streaks did not last. a.r.s.enal, however, had other ideas: they seemed to want to show me that troughs could indeed be permanent, that some people, like some clubs, just couldn't ever find ways out of the rooms they had locked themselves into. It seemed to me that night and for the next few days that we had both of us made too many wrong choices, and had let things slide for far too long, for anything ever to come right; I was back with the feeling, much deeper and much more frightening this time, that I was chained to the club, and thus to this miserable half-life, forever. possible to change patterns, that losing streaks did not last. a.r.s.enal, however, had other ideas: they seemed to want to show me that troughs could indeed be permanent, that some people, like some clubs, just couldn't ever find ways out of the rooms they had locked themselves into. It seemed to me that night and for the next few days that we had both of us made too many wrong choices, and had let things slide for far too long, for anything ever to come right; I was back with the feeling, much deeper and much more frightening this time, that I was chained to the club, and thus to this miserable half-life, forever.

I was stunned and exhausted by the defeat (2-1, although the one came in the last minute, and we were well beaten by then): the next morning a girlfriend phoned me at work, and, hearing the tired dejection in my voice, asked me what was wrong. ”Haven't you heard?” I asked her pitifully. She sounded worried and then, when I told her what had happened, I could hear, just for a second, relief so it wasn't, after all, the things she had momentarily feared for me before she remembered who she was talking to, and the relief was replaced by all the sympathy she could muster. I knew she didn't really understand this sort of pain, and I wouldn't have had the courage to explain it to her; because this idea, that there was this log-jam, this impa.s.se, and that until a.r.s.enal sorted themselves out then neither could I ... this idea was stupid and reprehensible (it gave a whole new meaning to relegation) and, worse than that, I knew now that I really did believe it.

FREEING THE LOG-JAM

a.r.s.eNAL v WATFORD

31.3.86

It wasn't just the few results after the Villa game, I suspect, that enabled the a.r.s.enal board to see that something had to be done, even though they were bad enough: the particularly pathetic 3-0 FA Cup defeat at Luton has been cited (on the History of a.r.s.enal 1886-1986 History of a.r.s.enal 1886-1986 video, for example) as the game that provoked manager Don Howe's resignation, but everyone knows that's not true. Howe actually resigned after a 3-0 victory over Coventry, because he found out that chairman Peter Hill-Wood had approached Terry Venables behind his back. video, for example) as the game that provoked manager Don Howe's resignation, but everyone knows that's not true. Howe actually resigned after a 3-0 victory over Coventry, because he found out that chairman Peter Hill-Wood had approached Terry Venables behind his back.

We had heard a few ”Howe Out” chants on the North Bank, in between the Villa game and his resignation; when he did resign, however, the managerless team fell apart, and the chants then became directed against the chairman, although I couldn't join in. I know the board went about things in a pretty underhand way, but something had to be done. That a.r.s.enal team full of cliques and overpaid, over-the-hill stars would never be bad enough to go down, but never good enough to win anything, and the stasis made you want to scream with frustration.

The girlfriend who had tried, and failed, to get any sense out of me on the morning after the Villa match came with me to the Watford game, her first experience of live football. In a way it was a ludicrous introduction: there were less than twenty thousand in the ground, and most of those that were there had come simply to register their disapproval with everything that had taken place. (I belonged to the other category: those that were there because they were always there.) After the players had b.u.mbled around for an hour or so, and had gone two down, something strange happened: the North Bank switched allegiance. Each Watford attack was greeted by a roar of encouragement, each near miss (and there were hundreds of them) given an ”Oooh!” of commiseration. It was funny, in a way, but it was also desperate. Here were fans who had been completely disenfranchised, who could think of no more hurtful way to express their disgust than to turn their back on the team; it was, in effect, a form of self-mutilation. It was obvious, now, that the bottom had been reached, and it was a relief. We knew that whoever the manager was (Venables quickly made it clear that he didn't want to get involved in this sort of mess), things could not get any worse.

After the game there was a demonstration outside the main entrance, although it was difficult to ascertain precisely what people wanted; some were chanting for the reinstatement of Howe, others simply giving vent to a vague but real anger. We wandered along to have a look, but none of my crowd could muster the requisite rage needed to partic.i.p.ate. From my own point of view, I could still remember my childish, melodramatic behaviour on the telephone the morning after the Villa game, and the demonstration was oddly comforting the girl who had had to tolerate my sulk could see that I was not the only one, that there was this whole community who cared about what was happening to their a.r.s.enal more than they cared about anything else. The things that I have often tried to explain to people about football that it is not an escape, or a form of entertainment, but a different version of the world were clear for her to see; I felt vindicated, somehow.

1986-1992

GEORGE

a.r.s.eNAL v MANCHESTER UNITED

23.8.86

My mother has two cats, one called O'Leary and the other called Chippy, Liam Brady's nickname; the walls of her garage still bear the graffiti I chalked up there twenty years ago: ”RADFORD FOR ENGLAND!” ”CHARLIE GEORGE!” My sister Gill can still, when pushed, name most of the Double team.

Sometime in May 1986 Gill called me at the language school during my midmorning break. She was then working at the BBC, and the Corporation announces big news as it comes in over the tannoy for the benefit of all staff.

”George Graham,” she said, and I thanked her and put the phone down.

This is how things have always worked in my family. I feel bad that a.r.s.enal has intruded into their lives, too.

It wasn't a very imaginative appointment, and it was obvious that George was second or even third choice for the job, whatever the chairman says now. It is possible that if he hadn't played for the club, with great distinction, around the time that I started going then he wouldn't even have been considered for the position. He came from Millwall, whom he had rescued from relegation and then led to promotion, but I can't remember him setting the world on fire there; I worried that his lack of experience would lead to him treating a.r.s.enal as another Second Division team, and that he would think small, buy small, concentrate on keeping his job rather than attacking the other big teams and, at first, these fears seemed well-founded the only new player he bought in his first year was Perry Groves from Colchester for 50,000, yet he sold Martin Keown immediately, and Stewart Robson not long after, and these were young players we knew and liked. So the squad got smaller and smaller: Woodc.o.c.k and Mariner had gone, Caton went, and n.o.body replaced them.

He won his first game, at home against Manchester United, with a late Charlie Nicholas goal, and we went home cautiously positive. But he lost the next two, and by the middle of October he was in a little trouble. There was a nil-nil draw at home to Oxford which was as poor as anything we had seen in the previous six years, and already the people around me were yelling abuse at him, outraged at his perceived parsimony. In mid-November, however, after thumping Southampton 4-0 (admittedly all four of our goals were scored after the Southampton goalkeeper had been carried off), we went top of the League, and stayed there for a couple of months, and there was more, lots more, to come on top of that. He turned a.r.s.enal into something that anyone under the age of fifty could never have seen before at Highbury, and he saved, in all the ways the word implies, every single a.r.s.enal fan. And goals ... where we had come to expect 1-0 wins at Highbury, suddenly fours and fives, even sixes, became commonplace; I have seen five hat-tricks, by three different players, in the last seven months.

The Manchester United game was significant for another reason: it was my first as a season-ticket holder. Pete and I bought terrace tickets that summer, not because we expected the new manager to change anything, really, but because we had come to terms with the hopelessness of our addiction. It was no use pretending any longer that football was a pa.s.sing fancy, or that we were going to be selective with our games, so I flogged a pile of old punk singles that had somehow acquired value, and used the money to tie myself to the fortunes of George, and have often bitterly regretted it, but never for very long.

The most intense of all footballing relations.h.i.+ps is, of course, between fan and club. But the relations.h.i.+p between fan and manager can be just as powerful. Players can rarely alter the whole tone of our lives like managers can, and each time a new one is appointed it is possible to dream bigger dreams than the previous one ever allowed. When an a.r.s.enal manager resigns or is sacked, the occasion is as sombre as the death of a monarch: Bertie Mee quit around the same time as Harold Wilson, but there is no question that the former resignation signified more to me than the latter. Prime Ministers, however manic or unjust or wicked, simply do not have the power to do to me what an a.r.s.enal manager can, and it is no wonder that when I think about the four I have lived with and through, I think about them as relatives.

Bertie Mee was a grandfather, kindly, slightly otherworldly, a member of a generation I didn't understand; Terry Neill was a new stepfather, matey, jocular, dislikeable however hard he tried; Don Howe was an uncle by marriage, dour and stolid yet probably and unpredictably good for a couple of card tricks at Christmas. But George ... George is my dad, less complicated but much more frightening than the real one. (Disconcertingly, he even looks a little bit like my dad an upright, immaculately groomed, handsome man with an obvious taste for expensive, well-cut formal clothes.) I dream about George quite regularly, perhaps as often as I dream about my other father. In dreams, as in life, he is hard, driven, determined, indecipherable; usually he is expressing disappointment in me for some perceived lapse, quite often of a s.e.xual nature, and I feel guilty as all h.e.l.l. Sometimes, however, it is the other way around, and I catch him stealing or beating someone up, and I wake up feeling diminished. I do not like to think about these dreams or their meanings for too long.